2010 Southern Mountains Rally

[Mickb83]

Southern Mountains Rally ready to roll!

Based in the spectacular fishing town of Eden approx 480Km’s south of Sydney, the event is being run by the NSW Classic Rally Car Association in conjunction with AMSAG for the second time as Round 4 of the popular Pipe King AMSAG Southern Cross Rally Series on Saturday 31st July & Sunday 1st August.

A quality field of 42 cars will face the endurance test of nearly 355Km’s of competitive driving over 19 stages and two days including 4 stages to be run after dark on Saturday night. Using mainly fast flowing forestry roads, it will be the longest event of this years AMSAG Series. All of the cars, big and small, will be balancing a mix of pushing hard and saving the car to make the full distance and try to come out on top of what will surely be a testing event for all involved.

The range of cars entered vary from the Rear wheel drive Classic’s such as Queenslander Dave Gaines in his unique Datsun 240K & the ever present Andy Crane in a Peugeot 504, who will be competing in The Great Southern Inn – Southern Mountains Rally, this event is restricted to the AMSAG Classic Series entries.

Competing over the same roads but in a different named event, the Great Southern Inn 350, will be the Modern Category cars comprising of Turbo 4WD and Rear Wheel Drive Modern cars such as Gerald Schofield in a Mitsubishi Evo 6 and Mark Callinan in his resplendent BMW, also fitting in the Modern Category are the mighty little Front Wheel Drives such as Victoria’s Gerald Blum in the Hyundai Excel and making a comeback this year, Jarrod Gotch in a Toyota Corolla.


The Classic category will be headed by defending Champion, Bill Brown in his immaculately prepared Datsun 1600 and co-driven by his son Mitch, the father and son team are having a great start to the year and are currently sitting on top of the Classic Series Pointscore. With a lot of the AMSAG regulars sitting out at this event, and with some interstate teams stepping up to have a go, Bill & Mitch could potentially take a strong lead into the final few rounds of the Championship with a good result in Eden.

Taking the task of leading the charge in the Classic category will be Queenslander Dave Gaines and Nikki Doyle in their Datsun 240K, the pair travelling to Eden for their second run in the Southern Mountains Rally are sure to be a big contender for outright positions. Also a favourite to be at the top will be local South Coast driver Ben Barker in a BMW 320is, Ben’s local knowledge may help when it comes down to the crunch. Not to be outdone, ACT crews Richard Leitis & Robin Mules in a Ford Escort MkI and Steve Willett & Marc Kelly in a Holden Commodore will be sure to push hard to get a decent result.

A part of the regular AMSAG crews running, and looking to take valuable points from Brown are, Jamie Waterhouse & Tim Hammond in the mighty little Datsun 120Y, Mark Bramble & Michael Bannon in their Mitsubishi Galant, Jim Middleton & Kate Murphy in a Holden Commodore and the awesome sounding twin Ford Escort MkI BDA’s of Series sponsor John Hills & Mick Tuckey and John’s son David Hills & Paul Bennett. Also sure to be thrilling the crowds will be the thundering V8 Commodore of Anthony & Tony Campbell and V8 Skyline of Mick King & Brett Maytom.

The Modern Category will once again be an interesting battle between the modern 2wd and 4wd vehicles, with Sydney Brothers Michael & Chris Long absent from this round; the Open 4WD class is wide open. The favourite for a class win will be Gerald Schofield & Kirralee Gentleman in a Mitsubishi Evo6, hot on their heels will be Mal & Bernie Hurley in a Subaru WRX, adding to the mix will be Richard Troupe & Russell Hannah in their Toyota GT4, freshly rebuilt after a bad off road excursion in the last round, Richard & Russell will be looking to make amends and finish with a strong result at this event.

In the Open RWD class, the mighty BMW of Mark Callinan & Matt Wilson will surely start as favourite with the pair currently leading the class in the Championship Pointscore. They will be challenged this time around Denis Turkovic & Chris Tobin in a Turbo Datsun 1200 and Matt Thompson & Aaron Tams in a Turbocharged Nissan Skyline.

And taking up the Open Category’s Front Wheel Drive charge will be Sydney’s Jarrod Gotch & Max Ludowici in a newly built Toyota Corolla, also running a Corolla will be Joshua Hilton & Rodney Van Der Poel. Looking to challenge the two Toyota’s will be two Hyundai Excel’s in the hands of Victorian Gerald Blum & Chris Bolton and New South Welshman Andre Artarmonov & Gleb Blonch.

The Great Southern Inn Southern Mountains Rally & The Great Southern Inn 350 would not possibly run without the help of a large band of officials and sponsors. The event organisers wish to proudly thank the following event sponsors:-
• The Great Southern Inn
• PJ’s Service Station – Eden
• Eden Newsagency
• Linga Longer Café – Bombala


Be sure to get out and checkout the rally action on what are widely regarded as some of the best rally roads on the East Coast of Australia!

Spectator instructions are available on the rally website Southern Mountains Rally - Home and the AMSAG website AMSAG - Home


Competitors interested in upcoming AMSAG events as part of the 2010 Pipe King Southern Cross Rally Series can also find information about the club at the website AMSAG - Home.

[Chezsta]

Matty T and Tams - gearbox issues - DNF!

[rwinks]

Originally Posted by Chezsta

Matty T and Tams - gearbox issues - DNF!

That's a real shame to hear of the DNF because they were looking great through the 3 points on the stages I got to see the skyline throwing its roster tails while it was displacing its excessive 190rwkw. Is this where I quote “there is no substitute to sear cubic inches". or is this where I remember Matt telling me the storey of how he took the gamble of increasing the boost because he had upgraded the gear box.

At the end of the day I can feel their pain of power and torque doesn't always equal fun but instead it’s an engineering challenge.

Rally On guys I loved all the 2wd action that spurred my emotions today - thanks.
Russel

[legend]

any results anywhere for this?

more importantly, can anyone tell me how dave and nikki are doing in the 240K?

[Matt]

Originally Posted by legend

more importantly, can anyone tell me how dave and nikki are doing in the 240K?

SS4 - on it's lid. Both are OK.

Thanks Russel. I think?!? I suppose I should think about getting a Commodore. Something with less horsepower and more weight...

[Matt]

Don't have comprehensive results, but at the end of SS10 it seems that Callinen in the BMW leads. Swill was 8th outright and 3rd Classic, Leitis was 10th, Richard Troupe was 11th, and we were 12th.

The event has been fantastic. Good road book. Very very fast roads!

[Grumblebum]

Any results available-- Matt I've got a couple of Stumpy R30 Gearboxes down here Regards Pete

[Swill]

In the Classic's

1. Waterhouse
2. Barker
3. Brown

and I think I snuck into 4th and 1st in E class. Great event, its an equal to the Alpine. Good challenging roads. A+++ will drive again. A real credit to the Ruggles Boys & the AMSAG crew. More later

[tortfeaser]

I've attached a scan of the results. Quality poor, my scanner driver is gonna kill me.

THanks for Swill for the ride. Thanks Munyard and Hman for service. Thanks other HRA/BMSC/Canberra crew for the company.

Top roads down that way. AMSAG 'rules' are a weirdness I don't think I can really get into, but if that's the only way to run those roads I'll be there fo sho.

[Ben Wilson]

Top event, huge fun. Hard work for all, not made any easier by some idiot falling into a hole and doing something bad to my leg..

Notes for the future: Make sure you've got fresh batteries in your headlight and check the depth of dips before you step in them....

[red pulsar guy]

WOW! What a great event!
Starting as car 1 on the road, this was both dad's and mine 1st time down to Edan, and will be back next year 100%!
The aim of this trip was to finish the event and take away points for the championship, although dad was wishing on sunday we'd pushed harder from the start hahaha.
The roads were amazing!.... Some of them slippery according to dad, but that's the fun of running car 1! Not one complaint there.

It was also amazing to get the the start of a stage or end of the stage and see the smiling and excited faces of all the volunteers involved. We had a chat to quite a few and they had come from every which way imaginable just to stand in the bush so we could have fun in the dirt. We can't thank each and every one of them and the organisers enough. You are all legends!

We were placed car 9 on the road at the end of saturday and managed to climb our way back to 6th by the end of the 3 stages run on sunday...
a job well done.

Big ups to dad for another great drive, the last night stage of Saturday was amazing... we decided to have a big push and done rather well considering we ran car 1. 1st time I've felt compelled to congratulate dad on an awesome stage, i was grinning from ear to ear! It was sssssssssoooo much fun!

So, this was my 3rd full event as nav... and i tell you what... bring on Cowra!
Can't wait to get back in the car.

Huge thank you to our service crew for the weekend; Matt, Brad and Dodge... We laughed all weekend because of you guys (and the gas bottle video hahaha). But seriously, dad and i owe alot of the result to you guys.
Thanks a million!

See ya's at Cowra!
-Mitch

[rick 1600]

Fantastic event, I agree with Mitch, the roads were just awsome i'll be back next year.

The whole rally ran very smoothly for us, did'nt have to touch the car all weekend. Seeded 24th pushed as hard as we could and through sheer luck
(for us) Callinan, Barker, Waterhouse and Hills all had tyre issues spins and or both, so we just happened to be there to pick up 2nd outright by one second over Jamie Waterhouse. As our third ever rally and never rallied at night, we were extatic to say the least.

A big thanks to all that helped to make the rally so successfull and also my service crew, even though they did bugger all all weekend, thanks guys.

thanks also to Longy for helping our rookie service crew.
Well done AMSAG.

hope to see some video and pics up soon.

[brann]

Well I have one for you right now from Speccy point one!

I am slowly formatting the few pics I have.

As service crew for 3 cars this weekend we only made it to speccy point one where I had the camera out. I have pics for cars 23-39 (if you made it that far ) We also made it to the Gecko Rd instruction call on stage 6 where we managed to get about 4 or 5 cars. of which Car 20 I managed to grab what I think is a fantastic shot!

Will let you know when they are all available, but for now here's a teaser.

Cheers,
Adam.

[rick 1600]

Great stuff Adam, datto pic is a cracker!

[rallydatsun]

wow, what an event!!!!!

that was the best driving i have ever done!!!

started out cautiously, then ramped it up toward the end.

the second hand tyres stayed up, had lots of grip as seen on the you tube footage of sun morning.

Luck was on our side, on the last night stage, everything died. Alternator carked it. pulled back from the start line, pulled the phone out, turned it on, and amazingly we had reception. Called the service crew (you guys were tops) and they had reception. so the spare alternator was on its way.
whiped it in, and were last on stage (thanks to the start controler for waiting, AMSAG ROCKS)

unlucy for our competitors, they both had mechanicals, and let us take out class.

We might not have been fastest, but I reckon we would have won the biggest grins award!!


every one should do this event once in their rally careers!

hats off to the organisers, and all the volunters for the best weekend ever!!!

That is rallying at its best.